“Best ever” Q1 for School Specialty

14 August 2007 — Greenville (WI): School Specialty has reported its Q1 results for fiscal 2008.

Diluted EPS from continuing operations were $1.87, a 16.9 percent increase from the same period a year earlier. Earnings from continuing operations increased by $2.8 million to $40.6 million, while revenue improved to $386.5 million, up 2.5 percent from last year.

CEO David Vander Zanden said: "This year’s Q1 was the best ever for School Specialty. Despite of a slow start to the quarter, our associates delivered good overall growth, and we again improved our profit margins through cost reduction activities, supply-chain efficiencies and a continued shift in our revenue mix to the more profitable specialty products.”

Specialty Q1 segment revenue grew $18.7 million, or 8.9 percent, from $209.4 million to $228.1 million. Essentials revenue, which was impacted by the later start dates in many school districts, was $166.1 million as compared to the $174.9 million last year. Organic revenue growth for the combined segments was 2.5 percent.

Commenting on the segment’s performance, Thomas Slagle president and COO, said: "In last year’s Q4 we decided to discontinue an underperforming catalogue and we walked away from some low-margin bids, which with the order delays, impacted Q1 results. Those issues are now behind us and the order flows we’re seeing through the first half of August are strengthening.”